“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” —Michael Altshuler I visited my hometown last weekend when I took my son to his volleyball tournament. I did not grow up in a what you would call a good city. The crime rate is greater than 89% of all U.S. cities. Read More
Choosing Grace
“Grace means that all your mistakes now serve a purpose instead of serving shame.” Brene Brown In America, the idea of making a mistake is frowned upon. We are a society that celebrates the strong, beautiful and perfect. Winning is the object of this game we call life, and shame on you if you can’t Read More
Don’t Control…Create!
This is the time of year where, as I like to put it, “something’s got to give.” With the busy-ness of the holidays, calorie-dense food and drink everywhere I look, the cold and dark creating an unfriendly environment for exercising, a variety of illnesses infecting my household, and this year my husband being away, I Read More
It’s Your Choice
The Bad News The bad news is that we underestimate the power of our own choices and our role in creating our lives. We make hundreds of choices a day: many small, some more significant and others habitual, which we don’t give any thought to at all. When choices become habits, just “something we do,” Read More
The Place You Belong
“Sometimes the place that you are used to is not the place where you belong.” —from the movie The Queen of Katwe A “place” can be physical or metaphorical. In teaching at-risk students for 12 years, I’ve learned many of them feel they don’t belong in their own homes. And many times, I’ve agreed. We Read More
Tahoe Blue
Lake Tahoe was the perfect place to spend time with my husband before he leaves on a four-month work trip. The lake is so tied to memory for me that visiting it is like coming home to see an old friend. Driving down into the mouth of the valley is like getting a warm hug, Read More
Know Thyself
In order to love yourself, you must first know who YOU are. Just as it is impossible to love a stranger, you need to spend time getting to know yourself. This includes a lot of self-reflection and awareness, or noticing, what you respond to and why. Whatever makes your soul happy…do more of that. One Read More
Becoming
About two months into my sobriety journey, I came across the following quote from one of my heroes, Brene Brown: “Are you the adult you want your child to become?” Ouch. I immediately winced, the pain, shame and regret from drinking for the entirety of my three children’s lives still haunting my every waking moment. Read More
The Truth, As I See It
What if, one day, you realized that your reality—the truth you had been fed and willingly accepted—was a lie? What if those in a position of power through their words and images and actions told you, showed you and tried to prove to you that something was safe and acceptable when it really wasn’t? What Read More
My Own Hero
Of all the positive changes you can make in your life, quitting drinking has to top the list. It is a keystone habit that, when eliminated from your daily routine, can allow everything else to fall into place. Anxiety? Virtually gone! Guilt and shame? A thing of the past! Feeling like shit and having no Read More